It was a beautiful and sunny day at Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca on Saturday, but the action on the turf was anything but friendly.

The No. 3-ranked Cornell men’slacrosse team hosted Army with an eye toward avenging last year’s 11-9 heartbreaker in the Big Red’s regular season finale.

This time around Cornell (2-0) left little to chance in a dominating 18-7 win over the Black Knights (2-3).

Attackmen Rob Pannell, Steve Mock and Matt Donovan contributed six points each to Cornell’s win. Head coach Ben DeLuca said while pleased with the victory, there was room for improvement, especially regarding the teams 18 turnovers.

“(We have to) cut down on turnovers,” DeLuca said. “When you play at a high pace you take some chances. The turnovers today versus turnovers at Binghamton, you can see they are different. You’re gonna take some risks (but) get some rewards.”

Mock finished with five goals and one assist, while Pannell had one goal and five assists and in only his second start for the Big Red, Donovan had four goals and two assists.

“We are looking for sixty great minutes,” DeLuca said. “Today we got maybe 40-45 minutes We want it to be consistent across the board.

Garrett Thul lead Army with three gaols, all scored in the game’s first 20 minutes. Black Knights captain Devin Lynch had two goals and John Glesener notched a goal and an assist.

Goaltender Andrew West felt the team had done much of what they set out to.

“The goal was to play as one,” he said. “We did a good job relaxing and not getting on everyone’s back.”

Army’s tight, aggressive defense denied the Big Red any room to work early. Cornell pressed for nearly the first three minutes of the game but went on defense without netting a goal.

Thul found an opening though while Cornell served a penalty, slicing through the defense and beating Andrew West to open scoring five minutes in.

Pannell and Donovan had an answer for Thul just one minute later when their nifty spin moves tricked Zach Palmieri on back-to-back goals to put Big Red up 2-1.

Donovan came knocking again through a now-porous Army defense to get his third goal of the season. But the deficit didn’t faze Army for long and they got back on the attack, whipping shots, forcing Big Red offensive turnovers and matching the defense’s physical play.

Perseverance paid off when Thul scored his second of the game, but was immediately countered by Keith lazering a shot past Palmieri to make it 4-2 Cornell at the end of the first period.

The score wouldn’t stand pat for long. Not content to let Keith and Donovan have all the fun, Mock side armed a couple bullets that whistled past Palmieri to put Cornell up 6-2.

In response, the Black Knights went on a little run of their own with Thul and Alex Van Krevel finding openings past West. Junior Thul was a standout throughout the game, pushing the pace and challenging Cornell despite the score disparity.

A valiant effort by Army to put points on the board before the half was for naught as West was impenetrable. Cornell took the 10-5 lead into the third period with shots 23-16 in favor of the home team. Army would take just 8 shots in the second half, compared to Cornell’s 23.

Just ten seconds into the new half, Mitch McMichael and Donovan took advantage of two Army penalties to net quick goals and make it 12-5 Cornell.

Down by seven, Palmieri was standing on his head trying to keep Army’s hopes alive. But his defense allowed Roy Lang to walk right in for his first goal of the season and Cornell’s 13th of the day.

Maintaining their composure, Lynch fooled West on two unassisted strikes in the third period but with 0.05 seconds left in the frame, Connor English gave Cornell a 14-7 advantage going into the game’s finale.

On that goal, which he assisted on, Pannell went down and was attended to by Cornell’s medical staff, appearing to favor his left ankle. Pannell was helped off the field by two teammates and did not return to the game.

Head coach Ben DeLuca said Pannell’s injury was “non-contact” and that “we don’t know the severity yet.”

A scoreless fourth by Army and goals from Cornell’s Donovan, J.J. Gilbane, Scott Austin and Cody Lavine would send the Black Knights back to West Point with a loss.